weepier tones

Saving the Boobies” is a mantra that gets thrown around a lot this month, but it does not properly address how breast cancer adversely affects and ends lives. Talking about breasts as if they are an independent entity, as if it’s the breasts that are worth saving as opposed to the life and body they are attached to is not only patriarchal, but also down right sexist. It implies that a woman’s worth is in her breasts, in her sexuality. There is no “Save the Dick” campaign to raise awareness for penile cancer because unlike dick, boobs are objects of heterosexual male desire. Breastfeeding (another topic for another day) and a little thing called cancer interfere with that. Making breast cancer “sexy” as a marketing device not only undermines the severity of breast cancer but also assumes that women are the only ones with mammary glands. If we cannot have productive conversations about breast cancer without pitting women against their bodies, we will never be able to bring awareness to the early detection of other deadly (presumably un-sexy) cancers like penile cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, lymphoma, and countless others.’